Hatch

by Kenneth Oppel

  She was about to deny it, but with silent talking, it was harder to lie. It was too direct, too intimate.

  —How could you tell? she asked.

  —You just seemed more confident. You weren’t hiding your face anymore, stuff like that. And I can tell you like how Charles is always trying to get your attention.

  She couldn’t deny any of this—it was all so new to her.

  —Do you like him back? Petra asked.

  She shook her head. It made her feel almost guilty: she liked the admiration, but she didn’t feel the slightest bit romantic about him.

  —Anyway, I’m too busy turning into a kangaroo, she said.

  —And I’m turning into a Komodo dragon.

  Anaya glanced at Petra’s tail, jutting through its Velcro flap. It swished side to side as she ran. Anaya knew how hard it had been for her friend to finally let it show. It had simply gotten too uncomfortable to cram down a pant leg. It was almost a foot long. Below her smooth skin, a pattern was starting to show: delicate black-and-gold vines twined hypnotically around each other.

  She caught Petra looking ruefully across the gym to where Seth and Esta were having their feathers measured.

  —He’s basically dumped us, Petra remarked.

  —He hasn’t dumped us, Anaya said, though it was true that Seth was spending more and more time with the other flyers. She knew it drove Petra crazy, especially when Seth chose to eat with Esta rather than them. But Petra would never go over to the flyers; she was too proud.

  —Dumped me, then, Petra said. I can’t believe he got sucked in by Esta’s wounded-bird routine. I don’t buy it. She’s all quiet and doesn’t talk to anyone but him, and then she goes all psycho and slashes apart punching bags. She sighed. Anyway, what guy wouldn’t prefer a hot babe with wings over someone who molts?

  —No one could be hotter than you, Anaya told her friend, wanting to cheer her up. And your new skin is more beautiful than ever.

  It was so unlike her friend to feel sorry for herself, but Anaya remembered, back on Deadman’s Island, how Petra had confided her worst fear to her: she was terrified that if her body changed, she’d become monstrous and no one could ever love her. Did she actually think this was what had happened with Seth?

  She was about to say something comforting, but Petra looked over, her blue eyes startlingly vulnerable, and asked:

  —I’m still me, right?

  It was something Anaya had promised her friend when they’d started changing: We’re still us. No matter what happened on the outside, they were still the same inside. But lately she’d caught herself wondering if it was true. Everything that had happened to her body—her speed, her strength, her brain that could talk to an alien species—it had started to change how she thought. And wasn’t that an inside change? But she could see Petra watching her urgently, waiting for her reply.

  —Absolutely, she said, hoping her friend hadn’t noticed her hesitation. The way we look doesn’t change who we are. We’re still us.

  “W10!” a White Coat shouted. “Pick up the pace! L9, standing jump station!”

  Anaya gave her friend a reassuring smile and pulled off the track.

  Every day in the bunker followed the same routine. In the morning, they were woken by guards, who escorted them to the cafeteria for breakfast. Afterward, they went to the gym for exercise and tests. Then lunch.

  In the afternoon, they were taken out for interviews with Paul or Ritter, sometimes both. The interview room was windowless, of course, but one wall was papered with a faded panorama of a beach at sunrise. Presumably to make them feel calmer.

  The questions rarely changed.

  Had she dreamed about the cryptogens?

  Had she had any communication with them?

  Could she draw them?

  Had she ever seen signs of their technology or weaponry?

  Was she experiencing any new changes to her body or ways of thinking?

  She told them nothing about her telepathy—and nothing about the single word from the cryptogen that night in the antenna farm. Though she thought about it often. Help and all the urgency, hope, and kindness carried with it.

  During the interviews, Anaya’s own questions always went unanswered:

  When can I talk to my parents?

  Where are they?

  Are they safe?

  What’s going on outside?

  What happened with all those eggs that rained down?

  Luckily, there were other ways of getting news. Yesterday three new kids had arrived, and at dinner, Anaya had clustered around with the others, asking them what was going on topside.

  There was a swimmer from Winnipeg called Nia, whose arms had icy silver patterning. Paolo, a bespectacled runner from Saratoga Springs, didn’t say much. The most talkative was Adam, a broad-shouldered runner from Minneapolis. And some of his news was hopeful.

  Turned out the herbicide spray was definitely killing the plants. The problem was, the authorities couldn’t make it fast enough. So they’d designated Spray Zones around major power stations, factories, highways, rail lines, and farms. Most of the herbicide was used up just keeping these areas plant-free.

  Outside the Spray Zones, things were getting worse. Nia said that the vines and pit plants were everywhere, people were losing power and running water, and food was getting scarce. Everyone was trying to get to the Spray Zones, which were turning into giant refugee camps.

  And then there were the bugs.

  None of the new kids had actually seen any themselves, but they’d all heard stories, mostly about big, winged insects. Quietly, Paolo said that he’d seen a video of a guy getting attacked by a swarm of them, but it was really blurry. There were rumors they drank blood.

  Anaya remembered the three tiny hatchlings in Dr. Weber’s lab back on Deadman’s Island. One of them had looked like it might grow wings. Could that tiny thing have grown into a bloodsucking monster so quickly? What about the other two creatures that had hatched? And who knew how many other kinds of eggs had fallen around the world? Or what they’d become?

  Now, watched over by White Coats, Anaya started obediently doing her standing jumps. Atop the stack of tires, she glanced across to where Petra sat, having acid dripped onto her skin. Their eyes met.

  —So, what do you want for your birthday? Petra asked jokingly.

  Anaya chuckled. A case of hair removal cream. I’d settle for a razor, though. You?

  —To be normal again.

  PETRA LOOKED OVER AS the gym doors opened and Paul entered, pushing a cart with a big monitor on top. It felt like a long time since she’d seen a screen or clutched one in her hands. It had actually been sort of a relief, not having to look at other people’s better bodies and better lives.

  “We have a special viewing treat for you!” Dr. Ritter announced, walking into the gym after Paul.

  She’d never seen Ritter smile before, and it changed his face, but not in a good way. The contrast between the smile and his lightless eyes made him look like a ghoulish doll. He was really chewing his words today, really enjoying the taste of them.

  “I know you’ve all been anxious about what’s going on topside, so I thought I’d bring you the latest news.”

  Everyone had stopped running and jumping and gliding and was making their way toward the television like cold, weary travelers drawn to a campfire. Even the White Coats and guards gathered around, looking as surprised as the kids. Petra went to stand with Anaya.

  “We thought,” said Ritter as Paul fiddled with switches, “you might like to see the first images of a cryptogen spacecraft.”

  “How?” Petra exclaimed.

  “Thanks to L9,” Ritter said, nodding directly at Anaya, “we found it. We triangulated the cryptogen signal she received and had a satellite repositioned closer to those coordinates.”

  The monitor lit up, and Petra’s gaze was instantly welded. It took her a while to understand what she was seeing. How could that be a spaceship? It had no metalli
c surfaces or sharp corners. What was it even made of? It looked like a gray rose. There was a long central stem and, blooming from the top, about ten overlapping petals. There were no lights she could see. Without anything nearby for scale, it was impossible to gauge how big it was.

  She’d always known that the cryptogens must have traveled a great distance in some kind of ship. And that the ship would need to be close enough to Earth to make it rain down seeds and eggs. But actually seeing the ship—something so utterly strange—sandblasted her mind.

  “This,” said Paul, “is a live feed from the satellite.”

  “How big is it?” she asked.

  “Huge,” Paul answered. “Each one of those petal-shaped structures is the length of two cruise ships.”

  —Why are they showing us this? Telling us stuff?

  She recognized Seth’s voice in her head and looked over to where he stood with Esta and the other flyers.

  —Wondering the same thing, Anaya said.

  When practicing their silent talking, they’d discovered it was possible to have a conversation with more than one person. It took a little more effort to hold two voices in your head simultaneously. Seth’s voice always came in clearest. Anaya’s was good, too, but they’d told her that hers was sometimes blurry. It bugged her that she wasn’t better at it, but it never felt natural to her, and she didn’t like it. Her eyes flicked to Esta, and she wondered if Seth had told her about the telepathy. Probably.

  “So all the seeds and eggs that rained down on us,” Darren was asking, “they came from this ship?”

  “That’s our assumption,” said Ritter. “We also believe this ship is where your signals have been going all these years. All the intel you’ve been shooting out to the cryptogens. Whatever or whoever you’ve been communicating with, they’re right inside. And by the looks of it, there’s lots of them. Hundreds of thousands.”

  “If they’re the same size as us,” Seth said.

  This seemed to irritate Ritter. But it startled Petra. She’d always assumed the cryptogens were roughly human-sized—but maybe she was wrong.

  “Whatever their size,” Paul said, “that ship holds one hell of an army.”

  “So they’re definitely invading?” she asked.

  “Can’t see any other explanation,” Paul replied.

  “Have you tried to talk to them?” Anaya asked.

  —Careful, Petra said to her.

  “We have, in fact, tried to contact them,” Paul said. “On every frequency imaginable. Without any response.”

  —See? Petra told her silently. They’re not here for some friendly shore excursion.

  “How come it took so long to find it?” Charles asked. “With all your satellites and stuff? I mean, the thing’s huge.”

  Petra saw Paul look at Ritter, as if asking for permission to explain. Ritter nodded smugly. He really did seem in an unusually good mood.

  “It has extraordinary cloaking technology,” Paul explained. “And no heat signature we can detect. It doesn’t show up on any radar system. The only way we found it was through the coordinates”—he nodded at Anaya—“and then visual tracking with various satellites.”

  “What’s that?” Petra asked as a narrow object darted into view from offscreen.

  Unlike the cryptogen ship, this thing was decidedly human-made, all glinting metal, emblazoned with the American flag.

  “That,” Ritter said with his terrible smile, “is the end of the war.”

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “It’s a missile launched from our satellite. It’s carrying a nuclear payload.”

  “We have nukes in space?” Seth asked.

  “We have nukes in space,” Paul replied, watching the monitor.

  “Luckily,” said Ritter, “we’ve been developing a covert space force, and we deployed it fairly quickly.”

  —Oh my God, Petra heard Anaya murmur inside her head.

  Her friend sounded genuinely upset, but it was ridiculous. This could solve everything! They’d blast this thing into oblivion!

  Petra watched the missile quickly disappear into the inky darkness.

  “Where’d it go?” Darren asked.

  “It’s moving incredibly fast,” Paul said. “And the target’s a long way away.”

  Which made Petra realize how truly huge the ship must be, looming there in the darkness.

  “Come on!” she said, her eyes fixed on the screen. “Blow it up!”

  “Nuke it, baby!” shouted Darren.

  She couldn’t tear her eyes away. Suddenly the entire monitor flared so brightly that she gave a little gasp. She blinked, still seeing the scalding white corona.

  “Touchdown!” Ritter shouted.

  All the guards and White Coats in the room, and the kids, too, were whooping and clapping, and shouting things at the monitor: “Hell yeah!” and “See you never, baby!” and “That’s how you do it!”

  “Yes!” shouted Petra, throwing her arms around Anaya in sheer joy and relief. She noticed her friend wasn’t hugging her back. She looked at Anaya and saw her troubled eyes.

  —You’ve got to be happy! It’s over!

  —I am. It’s just—

  Over Anaya’s shoulder, she saw the monitor become a crawling, pixelated mess. Then the image froze altogether.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Electromagnetic pulse,” Ritter said. “It’s typical to temporarily lose image right after a blast.”

  With the ship destroyed, what would happen now? The plants were still here, and the bugs, but there’d be no more invasions. Surely they could deal with what was left behind. Her hopes cascaded through her head. Tails could be cut off. Patterned skin could be lasered. None of that would change her DNA, but at least she wouldn’t look different from anyone else. And with a supply of special water, she could beat her water allergy. Anaya could pass as normal with some hair removal and a good mani-pedi. And if Seth were a little more flexible and had his feathers clipped, he could fit in, too. She remembered how violently he’d reacted when her father suggested it. Well, maybe Seth would have to change.

  “When can we go home?”

  Petra wasn’t sure who’d asked the question, but the sudden silence made it obvious that every single kid was thinking the same thing—and waiting for the answer.

  “Soon,” said Paul.

  “When soon?” asked Nia.

  Paul replied, “We should be able to start—”

  “We have some work to finish up here first,” Ritter interrupted, and Petra caught the surprise on Paul’s face.

  “What kind of work?” Seth asked.

  The question seemed to darken the room. Ritter’s smile spread wider, but his eyes grew dimmer.

  Petra’s eyes were suddenly dragged back to the monitor as the image stuttered to life.

  “Ah, we’re back online,” Ritter said.

  Debris sparkled across the screen, like a careening constellation.

  “That’s the wreckage,” said Ritter happily.

  After a moment, the barrage thinned, and the hair on the back of Petra’s neck lifted. In the distance was the vast, flower-shaped ship.

  “It’s still there!” she cried.

  “Doesn’t even look damaged,” Paul said, leaning closer to the monitor.

  Petra stared, devastated, as the ship serenely tilted and drifted slowly out of sight.

  There was another hailstorm of debris, and she realized this was the wreckage of the missile, nothing more. She glimpsed a jagged piece of metal bearing the Stars and Stripes rushing right toward the satellite, and then the image exploded into static.

  Chapter Eight

  THAT NIGHT AFTER DINNER, they came to the cafeteria to get her.

  “Are you trying to find the ship again?” Anaya asked Ritter as she was handcuffed and escorted down the corridor. The guards were a bit rougher this time. And Ritter seemed angry. Gone was his smile, which was actually a relief. But his eyes, if anything, were m
ore baleful.

  Despite her nerves, part of her was eager. She wanted to talk to the cryptogen this time; she wanted to know more.

  Watching that missile streak toward the ship, she’d been bewildered by how violently her emotions had forked. She’d wanted the ship destroyed, and she’d also wanted it saved. She knew Petra thought she was crazy, but she couldn’t forget the aura of kindness around that voice in her head.

  As she was marched down corridors and up stairs, she tried to remember the landmarks and turnings. At the elevator to the antenna farm, she watched closely as a guard with a froggy face took out his ring of keys. The one that unlocked the elevator was silver with a round top, shorter than the others.

  “Did you warn them?”

  She startled at Ritter’s voice and looked over, confused.

  “When we took you outside last time, did you tell the cryptogens our plans?”

  “How could I? I didn’t even know what you were planning!”

  The elevator clanked as it rose.

  “Did you knowingly communicate with them?” Ritter persisted.

  “No. I was half asleep!”

  He seemed far from convinced. The elevator shuddered to a halt and the doors snapped open. Up the ramp to the outside. The cool gust of fresh air. Electric lamps. Antennae towering into the night sky. The waiting crew of telecommunications people, sneezing behind their masks.

  And then she was on the dentist chair, hands locked behind her back. Her eyes measured the height of the fence. Ten feet. With a running start could she clear it? The forest seemed quieter than before. When she pulled her gaze back inside the fence, her eyes snagged on the concrete deck. Was that a seam in the concrete, or a sneaky tendril of black vine pressed into a crack?

  There was a sharp prick in her arm, and Ritter was saying: “Knock her out this time. I don’t want her chatting with anyone.”

  She was aware of her heart beating fast, and then—

  She was warm and quiet inside. Was she awake or dreaming?

  —Look.

  With a flare of amber light and the smell of damp soil, the word blossomed in her head. As before, it was only a single word, but Anaya felt like she’d been joyfully greeted by a worried mother.